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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23329282">the shade of poison trees</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MithrilWren/pseuds/MithrilWren'>MithrilWren</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Feels, Cultural Differences, Developing Relationship, M/M, Social expectations, Soulmate Marks as a side effect of dunamancy, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 05:55:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,791</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23329282</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MithrilWren/pseuds/MithrilWren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Essek didn't realize, when he was young, that the name on someone's arm could be <i>shameful</i>. </p>
<p>Like all other topics, he learned quickly.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>619</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the shade of poison trees</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for an anonymous prompt on tumblr: "the one where you have your soulmate’s name written on your body".</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Essek expected, for most of his life, that the day of his marking would be a joyous one.</p>
<p>When the cloth was pulled away, he gazed without worry on the script beneath - four simple letters, curved in elegant gold - and felt a rush of excitement swelling in his chest. To be given something all his own… some piece apart from the rest, to cherish and to long for… a great hope, not for his people, but for himself. It was worth far more to him than he knew before that moment.</p>
<p>“Bren,” he whispered aloud. A soft sound, not biting or sharp like his own name. <em>Masculine,</em> he noted hopefully, and his happiness grew.</p>
<p>Then he looked up, and saw the look in the Umavi’s eyes - or <em>Mother,</em> as he’d been taught to say, not by her - and what excitement had kindled within him withered to ash.</p>
<p>“No,” she said, with cold finality. “You will not speak that name again.”</p>
<p>“Why?” he asked, still too young to be wary of posing the question. His curious spirit had not yet been driven into the darkest parts of himself. He still considered civil disagreement an achievable goal.</p>
<p>He still believed that whatever he asked, he would be heard.</p>
<p>“It is a name that does not belong to this country.” <em>But it belongs to me, </em>a small voice within Essek cried out. “You will not lay claim to it. You will not speak it.”</p>
<p>
  <em>Don’t be so naive. Nothing belongs to you alone.</em>
</p>
<p>Essek fingered the split sleeves of his tunic, the flowing silk caught at the elbow with silver thread, the golden glimmer of those four letters just below the crook, not dimmed in the slightest by the sheer fabric. “But… how can I hide this?”</p>
<p>The Umavi - Mother, <em>Mother, </em>he reminded himself- stood and turned away. “You have tailors to spare, ready at your call. Cover your arms and be done with it.”</p>
<p>The others of the Den knew, of course, that this was to be his day. He was of the age for it. The whispers started the moment they returned to the manor house, a quiet clamour of well mannered gossip spreading through the halls. Only the boldest stepped forward to ask directly, and the Uma- <em>Mother</em> brushed them off with a grimace of practiced heartache.</p>
<p>“Nothing but a burn mark,” she said, in that special soft voice, the kind that was meant to carry. “Blackened, and unfresh. I’m afraid the lover must have died long ago.”</p>
<p>And perhaps, in a way, her words were true. Something had indeed died that day: the one last dwindling hope of the Umavi, for himself. That if he could not be the recipient of an honoured soul, perhaps he could have been the concubine of one.</p>
<p>“How unfortunate,” the askers simpered, looking at him sidelong all the while, with pity in their eyes.</p>
<p>
  <em>How he would rather have been called ‘unlucky’.</em>
</p>
<p>From that day on, Essek wrapped his arms in long mantles and dark sleeves, and scoured books for the word he dared not speak aloud. In all his searching, he found nothing. No historical figures, no linguistic root, no cause for the disgust in the Umavi’s - in <em>Mother’s </em>- eyes.</p>
<p>He asked his tutor, weeks later, and now desperate enough to set aside caution. The question was set under the guise of parsing some obscure tome, and he received a single word in reply, before the conversation faded into a disgusted silence.</p>
<p>
  <em>“Zemnian.”</em>
</p>
<p>It was a disgust he couldn’t bring himself to share, though he knew in his marrow, without being told, that he should.</p>
<p>Looking back he suspected that conversation, in what was soon to be a schism between him and his community as wide as the Ashkeepers themselves, was the first crack.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>There was a man, a new man, by the Martinet’s side at their second meeting. Dark black hair, fading to grey at the roots, and a cruel smile. No names were supplied, and none taken in return. That was expected. Essek still believed, at that time, that his anonymity was secure. He still considered his safety a guarded condition of the arrangement.</p>
<p>Still, the new man’s accent was strange, and though every oiled word he spoke oozed uneasiness into Essek’s throat, curiousity overrode courteousness by the end of the negotiation.</p>
<p>“I must ask,” he said, the arcanist’s chalk already slipped from his long sleeve, shadows of familiar circles and equations rendered dizzyingly mundane with the promise of more illicit knowledge to come. “Your way of speaking is… unfamiliar to me. Where do you call home?”</p>
<p>The man’s smile turned up and widened, so like a desert snake whose jaw unhinges to swallow its prey whole. “I am surprised you do not know it; an accomplished practitioner of magic such as yourself. My accent is Zemnian.”</p>
<p>For a moment, Essek’s heart seized in terror quite beyond the apprehension he already felt at the nature of the meeting. “I see,” he said softly, turning away before the tension in his jaw could betray him.</p>
<p>“Sir Thelyss… <em>Essek,”</em> came the accented voice again, “why do you ask?” And the fear grew, and grew, for if this man knew his name, and hadn’t been told…</p>
<p><em>But surely, then, the Martinet </em>must<em> have told him-</em></p>
<p>“I merely prefer to know a little of the men I do business with,” Essek said, “Mr. -?”</p>
<p>The Martinet regarded him sharply. Questioning was not part of his allowance of freedom, not at home, and not here. But Essek ignored the look and focused only on the other man, willing his hands not to tremble. If he did not ask, he could not know, and if he did not know, then how could he plan his escape?</p>
<p>“Ikithon,” said the man. “Trent Ikithon.” His smile widened all the more, and Essek smiled weakly in return, both relieved beyond measure, and deeply ashamed at his own foolishness.</p>
<p>Essek derided himself later that night, in the comfort of his own house. What a childish fear it had been: to believe that this man could have been his promised lover, in a sea of thousands.</p>
<p>But better that the lover really had died, as the Umavi claimed to her court, than to be bound to a man like that. Against all odds, to find the one he was meant for, and discover that person to be as heartless and cold-eyed as himself? What a pointedly cruel irony that would be.</p>
<p>Not that it mattered, truly. Essek was already quite comfortable in the knowledge that he would spend this life alone. Preferred the idea, in fact, over fate’s whim deciding his state of companionship.</p>
<p>It did not do to think too long on what had already been decided for him, and by who.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Essek met more with that accent, of course, over the years. As his position within the Dynasty expanded, so too did the breadth of his pool of liasons within the Empire. He spoke with many Zemnians, men and women and those without gender, but none bearing the name ‘Bren’.</p>
<p>Essek no longer hoped to find the one promised to him, though the mark had not faded from his skin, mocking him in the brief moments of bathing and undressing where he dared to bare his arms. Its presence meant the person was still alive, somewhere in the world. But again, it mattered little. His work was the only goal worth striving toward. Love was far from his mind.</p>
<p>Through his work, he also learned more of the customs and cultures outside the Dynasty. Premierely, that the soulmate mark was a peculiarity of the Beacons’ influence, and not an inherent biological process as he’d once assumed. No other races experienced the process, at least not naturally. Instead, they found their love willingly, without presumption or prescription in the choosing. It seemed to Essek a less orderly, but perhaps more romantic, way of doing things.</p>
<p>None within the Dynasty would ever receive a mark again. His own actions had seen to that. It was a side effect he hadn’t anticipated, too lost in the promise of all he could gain to truly grasp the implications of the Beacons’ absence.</p>
<p>He chose to believe it a blessing, once he had the presence of mind to consider the matter rationally. It was one more restriction of the state religion, gone. Freedom to choose, when there was none before. No more children made to feel ashamed of the shape of the letters seared into their skin - of something they could only hide, and not change.</p>
<p>Progress.</p>
<p>They said now that the only children who would receive a mark were the lost ones. That their first calling home would be the letters inscribed in their inner arms, where there had been none before: a badge to prove their right to belong to someone, somewhere. And now they belonged to a country as well, one that would welcome them home with open arms, regardless of the name they bore.</p>
<p>How times had changed since he was young.</p>
<p>Essek was loath to label the feeling in his chest when he thought of those children as ‘jealousy’, but it burned all the same.</p>
<p><em>The past is not important,</em> he reminded himself, again and again, <em>only the future,</em> and put the thought out of his mind.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>The red-haired human spoke with a familiar voice, as he held Essek’s very life in his hands, unknowingly offering up the means of his destruction in a soft accent Essek had once associated with hope.</p>
<p>Essek had no hope now. As the stranger held the Beacon aloft, Essek watched the foundations of his lie crumble from beneath him. Did this man - dressed in slave’s garb but standing so tall - did he know? He was of the Empire, or so he claimed. Was he sent by the Martinet?</p>
<p>This wouldn’t have been the first time in the last decade that things had shifted so dramatically without Essek being told. It seemed that all the promises the Empire had made to him were built on quicksand, and perhaps this was to be his final test. How much more was Essek willing to endure?</p>
<p><em>Anything,</em> it turned out, for the Bright Queen named him as their chaperone, and he endured that indignity without protest, gathering favours all the while in the vain hope that it could save him when this all turned sideways. He stayed close, as close as he dared, and closest still to the man who spoke with Ikithon’s accent, and waited to see if his words held the echo of the Martinet’s voice as well.</p>
<p>
  <em>Caleb.</em>
</p>
<p>It had not occurred to Essek to seek for Bren in decades, and so there was no disappointment in learning the name, and in learning more of him besides. An apt pupil, brilliant and eager, and even after weeks, Essek could suss no trace of the Assembly’s influence over his new charge.</p>
<p>The other things he learned of Caleb were far less important, and somehow, far more. That he didn’t shrink back from a challenge. That his hair often pulled from its tie in a most endearing way when his hands grew too restless. That he was braver than Essek by far, for Caleb no longer felt the need to cover his arms as he did when he arrived in Rosohna, to hide the shame etched into his skin. His scars, caught in brief glimpses over spellbooks and offered drinks, were horrific, and telling, and Essek wanted to learn more, share more, <em>be </em>more when he was with him. He had never wanted something like that in his life.</p>
<p>But there was something about the man, something Essek could not tear himself away from.</p>
<p>If this were another reality, he might have believed himself in love. But the name ‘Caleb’ did not belong to him. He could not bring himself to forget that. It assaulted him in his weakest moments: the knowledge that even if all he had done could be overlooked, even if every barrier between them was removed, it meant nothing. Caleb was out of reach, while Bren was alive.</p>
<p>That certainty was not an intellectual one, but emotional. It was born of years of smothered hope and longing. It belonged to the narrative of Essek’s life - inextricable, even if logic dictated that he’d made no bargain, signed no devil’s deal that prevented him from being with Caleb in a meaningful way. He had lived for so long in the knowledge that Bren was lost to him, and that that meant he would be alone, that to imagine anything else was impossible.</p>
<p>And still…</p>
<p>And still, Jester lent him a book, a month or so into their acquaintance, and insisted he <em>must </em>read it. He didn’t have time for such diversions, truthfully, but he read it all the same, because he found he could not say no to her. First in snatches, then with voracious abandon, by the end he was up till all hours turning the pages, so fast they might have caught fire. The prose was sparse, the descriptions obvious, but the story gripped him in a way he had never been gripped by fiction before.</p>
<p><em>The Courting of the Crick. </em>An offensive title, hiding a more offensive story within. Ostensibly, a propaganda piece, condemning the bloodthirsty regime of the Dynasty while extolling the saving grace of the civilized Empire. Beneath, the tale of a Kryn woman, who dared to choose a life with the Dwendalian man she loved. She made no mention of the mark on her arm other than to say that she cared not for the name given to her, or the man who owned it. She elected not to be bound by tradition, or country, but by her own heart.</p>
<p>He had not realized, until reading that story, that there were others who might once have felt the same ache as him.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>The first time Caleb showed Essek his scars properly was a week or so after the Nein had returned to Rosohna, following the peace talks. With no assassins at their door or cultists to quell, they could all collectively take a breath, and begin to sort out the shattered fragments of their former relationship.</p>
<p>Caleb arrived at his house alone, which was surprising to Essek. He could only conclude that the rest of the Nein didn’t know he’d come, because he did not believe Beau would have allowed him to without argument.</p>
<p>They stood in silence for a long moment, facing each other over the dining table where he’d once served cheese and crackers in a paltry imitation of good manners, to a group of people who had still trusted him, foolishly-</p>
<p>No, not foolishly. <em>Hopefully. </em>There was a difference. He had learned it the hard way. Destroying the hope of someone he cared for, it turned out, hurt immeasurably more than any other pain he’d caused in his life.</p>
<p>“I want to show you, so you understand,” Caleb said, as he removed his clothes. First his scarf, then his coat. The hostlers, the tunic, until only a thin undershirt remained. His arms fell loosely at his sides. No close examination was needed - Essek could see the precise lines very clearly from this distance, cuts so deep that neither time nor magic would ever heal the wounds.</p>
<p>“I gave everything of myself to Ikithon, willingly, without reservation, but when my usefulness to him waned, he found a new purpose for me. My body became an experiment, and it was more than I could bear. That was the first time I fought him, but it did not matter. He had my friends hold me down, and they did what he told them without question, because none of us dared refuse a single thing he asked of us. All the power was in his hands, always.” Caleb paused. “Do you understand?”</p>
<p>Essek wanted to nod, but he couldn’t stop staring at the lines - delivered by the despicable man he had worked for without coercion, solely for his own benefit. What was there to say?</p>
<p>When he didn’t respond, Caleb continued.</p>
<p>“You are in his clutches now. His hold over you remains as long as he is alive, and I think you know that. So I will warn you, Essek. There will come a time when he will ask something of you, and you will think that you cannot refuse. You will believe there is no other option. And you will be <em>wrong.</em> There is always another choice.”</p>
<p>“Even if that choice leads to my death?” Essek said.</p>
<p>“Yes,” Caleb answered, without hesitation, and began to pull his tunic back over his head. As his arms raised up, Essek caught the faintest glimmer of silver just below the elbow. Other lines, broken by scars, and so dim that one without eyes attuned to seeing in the darkness would likely have missed it, but-</p>
<p>All other thoughts flew away as Caleb stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Essek’s shoulders, pulling him close to his chest.</p>
<p>“Don’t let it come to that,” he murmured, and Essek shivered in his arms. “The world would not be made better by your death. And I- I would not be better.”</p>
<p>Then Caleb was gone, and Essek sat at the table alone, and thought in darkness, for many, many hours.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Months went by. The world changed, and didn’t. The Nein came and went, pastries were gifted, messages sent, fragile trust rebuilt. Essek stumbled, and pulled himself back up, and through it all Caleb was there to show him the way forward.</p>
<p>And through it all, Essek began to understand how to care for him as well.</p>
<p>Caleb returned with new magic to share, and Essek shared his time, and his mind, and his passion, and together they built a great many things - not hidden in secrecy and solitude, but eagerly shared. He learned how to make Caleb laugh, and counted that his greatest success of all.</p>
<p>And still…</p>
<p>And still, Essek counted himself blessed to be held in his esteem at all, and asked for nothing more. Deserved nothing more.</p>
<p>But, of course, Caleb’s impatience outgrew his own.</p>
<p>He had never kissed another soul in his life, but to <em>be</em> kissed was a magic of a new kind.</p>
<p>There was a twinge of guilt in the afterglow, but it swiftly faded in the too-short days before the Nein left Xhorhas again. Caleb bid him goodbye with a soft press of lips, and Essek couldn’t find it in himself to care about the name on his arm, when at last there was something real in the world to long for, a hope without equal despair: a love he had chosen, without being told.</p>
<p>The group returned a week later with their prize: the final Beacon, wrested from the grasp of the Assembly at last. Essek had known it was the purpose of their visit, and expected a summons to the chamber of the Bright Queen on their return, to share in the spoils and adulation heaped upon their shoulders. Heroes of the Dynasty, well and truly. Their reward would be immeasurably rich.</p>
<p>What he did not expect was Caleb’s bedraggled form appearing on his doorstep near to midnight. He was sopping wet from the evening downpour, and smiling happily. “Hello,” Caleb said, in that soft tone that never failed to make Essek’s ears warm, and let himself in.</p>
<p>He dripped rainwater all the way up to Essek’s laboratory, and Essek followed in his footprints, so accustomed to walking in Caleb’s presence now that he almost forgot there was a solution to his wet socks until they’d nearly reached the stairs. Shaking his head as he realized his error, he floated the rest of the way up, and avoided the last of the puddles.</p>
<p>Once settled, Caleb shrugged off his coat and threw it across a chair before pulling out five damp pieces of amber from his pocket. “I have something to show you,” he said, almost mischievous, and Essek leaned in closer as Caleb whispered a single word. A lead box appeared on the table before them. Carefully, Caleb drew back the lid, and Essek’s eyes widened.</p>
<p>There, in all its glory, was the final Beacon, the only one he knew of that remained untouched by the Dynasty’s hands. A true relic, steeped in the mysteries of the Age of Arcanum: all he had ever wanted. He started to reach out, but stalled his hand, turning his eyes instead to Caleb.</p>
<p>“Is this…?” he asked.</p>
<p>“I know the Cerberus Assembly did not uphold their end of the bargain, and you paid their price in full. It seems only fair that you should have the first crack at it.”</p>
<p>It was a kindness Caleb didn’t have to give, that Essek would never have expected after all he’d done, and for the first time in his life, Essek was the one to extend his arms. “Thank you,” he whispered, as Caleb stepped into them without hesitation, and didn’t mind the cold water seeping through his robes at all.</p>
<p>The next number of minutes were lost in the exhilaration of discovery, as he sunk his consciousness into the Beacon’s pull and was transported to a universe of possibilities he had never considered. Pasts and futures beyond his understanding floated through his mind, and by the time he emerged, Essek was giddy with excitement. By that time too, Caleb had shucked the last of his soaked clothing and stood by the table with arms and shoulders bare, the fond look in his blue eyes reflecting back the light of the crystal between them.</p>
<p>Another flicker caught Essek’s gaze. He frowned, staring at the inside of Caleb’s forearm that was currently braced on the table’s edge. A faint light was shining there beneath the skin, growing brighter and brighter with each passing second, until even Caleb took notice of the change. He glanced down, following Essek’s eyes to the spot of brilliance. “What on earth…”</p>
<p>Essek spun around the table, taking Caleb’s hand and turning his palm up, until they could both see the full length of the inscription: silver lines flowering from where the Beacon’s light fell, blooming to form five elegant letters.</p>
<p>“Essek…” Caleb said, reading and asking in the same breath. Essek shook his head, scarcely daring to breathe himself.</p>
<p>“Caleb,” he said, so quietly that no spy or sparrow could have heard him speak. “What does the name ‘Bren’ mean to you?”</p>
<p>Caleb didn’t answer, but his hand, still entwined with Essek’s, started to tremble as much as his own.</p>
<p>Fingers shaking, Essek reached up with his other hand, and began to undo the buttons on his cloak.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Come find me at <a href="https://mithrilwren.tumblr.com">mithrilwren</a> on Tumblr!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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